Xbox Insiders Start Testing October Update

Microsoft announced today that Xbox Insiders have begun testing some of the features that will come in the October Update.

“Starting last week, Insiders in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha rings began to see a few [new] features on their Xbox One consoles,” Microsoft’s Bradley Rossetti announced. “Xbox Insiders in Beta, Delta, and Omega Preview rings will receive these features in the coming weeks, in the lead up to our broader release.”

New features coming in the October Update include:

Wish List notifications. Notifications will alert users when an item in their Wish List has a price discount.

Mixer viewing improvements. Microsoft is building a Mixer viewing experience right into the Xbox Dashboard, “with a focus on speed and simplicity.” This means you will no longer need to navigate to a separate app to view your favorite streamers.

Recent Players improvements. The Recent Players experience is now more reliable and allows you to connect with other gamers instantly. You can now more engage with your Recent Players list to send a message, invite players to a party, or add them to your Friends List more quickly.

Capture settings improvements. The “Allow game captures” setting now has multiple options, giving you a choice of what types of captures can be taken. You can now select between “Captures by me,” “Captures by me or games,” or “Don’t capture.”

Recommend a Game Pass title. Game Pass users will be able to recommend Game Pass titles to others directly from the Xbox One console.

Game update improvements. Microsoft is improving how background game updates work. So you shouldn’t see that annoying “update required” screen as often.

Additionally, Microsoft reports that some users may also see other experimental features that it’s not yet documenting. “These features are only enabled for a portion of the Xbox Insider audience to gauge interest and collect feedback,” Rossetti added. “Your participation in the Xbox Insider Program helps us improve the work-in-progress content and features coming to Xbox One.”

Ah, the sickly-sweet smell of A/B testing has reared its ugly head in the Xbox Insider Program. Fantastic.